The use of photolithographic printing aids in integrated circuit fabrication is well known. Specifically, dummy cells are widely used as an important photolithographic printing aid in memory arrays: a typical memory array is divided into many small blocks and each small block is surrounded by periphery circuits such as sense amplifiers, drivers, and decoders (the size of the block is dependent on memory speed and other design considerations). In order to help the edge cells in each small block to print properly, dummy cells are placed right next to the edge cells. However, these dummy cells consume large amounts of chip real estate and the integrated circuit chip sizes must be increased. Larger chips mean fewer chips per wafer and thus higher costs of manufacture per chip. Therefore, the semiconductor industry is always looking to techniques to reduce integrated circuit chip size without compromising yield and reliability.